How many Minneapolis Police Department officers have left the force since January 2026, by month, according to official MPD records?

1. What the user is asking and what the record would need to show

The question seeks a simple ledger: the count of MPD officers who left the department after January 1, 2026, broken down by month, and says those counts should come from “official MPD records”; to answer that definitively requires an MPD public roster, monthly personnel change logs, or a departmental release specifying separations by month for 2026 — none of which are present in the supplied sources ^{[3] [2]}.

2. What the supplied sources do provide about MPD staffing through 2025

The supplied journalism and city materials chart a multi-year staffing decline and some recovery: Chief Brian O’Hara told reporters that in 2025 the department hired 174 sworn officers and lost 49, a figure describing attrition across the year 2025 rather than monthly departures in 2026 ^[1]. City and civic summaries note that MPD had been operating well below pre-pandemic ranks, with roughly “nearly 600” sworn officers reported into early 2026 and a charter minimum of 731 positions, but these are snapshot totals rather than monthly separation logs ^{[2] [4]}.

3. Gaps and why a month-by-month official count for 2026 is not available here

None of the provided items is a contemporaneous MPD personnel release or payroll change log for 2026 that lists separations by month; the MPD public information page referenced is for general department contact and releases but does not contain a detailed 2026 separation-by-month table in the supplied excerpts ^[3]. Independent pieces and municipal reports recount past years’ losses, staffing levels, and recruitment efforts ^{[5] [6] [7]}, but those sources stop short of the specific monthly accounting the question demands.

4. How other numbers in these sources could be misread as answering the question

Several outlets and social posts aggregate claims—e.g., tweets and commentary asserting “more than 100” officers applied for a leave program—but such social-media tallies and retrospective yearly totals are not equivalent to MPD’s official monthly departure records and should not be treated as authoritative official counts unless MPD confirms them ^[8]. Reporting that “they hired 174 sworn officers, and lost 49” is explicit about being a 2025 annual summary and cannot be repurposed to answer the 2026 month-by-month query without additional MPD documentation ^[1].

5. What would be required to produce the requested month-by-month official counts

To resolve the question as phrased, a search of MPD’s official public records is necessary: either (a) MPD monthly personnel change notices or press releases for each month of 2026, (b) city payroll or HR records showing separations by date, or (c) a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) / public records request to the City of Minneapolis for MPD personnel actions in 2026. The supplied material does not include any of those primary records ^{[3] [2]}.

6. Conclusion and how to proceed given available evidence

Based on the provided reporting, it is not possible to supply a month-by-month count of MPD officers who left since January 2026 “according to official MPD records” because no such MPD monthly separation record for 2026 is included in these sources; reporting instead supplies historical annual and snapshot figures through 2025 and general staffing context ^{[1] [4] [2]}. If official, month-by-month 2026 departure figures are desired, the next step is to obtain MPD’s 2026 personnel change logs or file a public records request with the City of Minneapolis; the sources here do not fulfill that need ^[3].